Fearnley's Paralympics turn to gold

Kurt Fearnley crosses the finish line to take gold in the men's T54 marathon, ahead of Japan's Hiroki Sasahara and South Africa's Ernst van Dyk. (Gallo Images: Duif du Toit)

Australia's Paralympic champion Kurt Fearnley has won his first gold medal of the Beijing Games on the final day of competition.

His long-awaited gold medal comes after crashes and an error by officials contributed to his missing out on earlier chances at gold.

But nothing was going to stop Fearnley this morning in the T54 men's marathon.

In a close race, there was little separating the top 16 finishers.

But Fearnley held on to snatch the gold from Japan's Hiroki Sasahara, finishing in 1 hour, 23 minutes and 17 seconds, and setting a new Paralympic record.

South Africa's Ernst van Dyk finished just 1.01 seconds behind Sasahara to take the bronze.

Fearnley was a favourite going into the event, having won the gold in Athens, despite blowing a tyre during that race.

Fearnley says today's marathon was a difficult race, and he had to work hard to hold onto the lead in the last 800 metres.

"That was a really tough roll," he said after the race.

"There were six Japanese guys there and they were constantly just working the front and it was a matter of just chasing the whole race.

"I knew if I could hit that stadium first, there weren't too many people who could take this away from me.

"I guess, when you're due for a run you're due for a run - this one was mine."

The 27-year-old from New South Wales went into the marathon after having just 1.5 hours sleep, and only 12 hours after competing in the men's 1,500m last night.

In that event, Fearnley looked like he was out of the race after a tap from behind pushed him off course.

But he managed to stay upright, and came back to claim the bronze medal.

His Paralympic campaign has been hampered by several other setbacks.

Fearnley was part of a relay team that was disqualified after a faulty change-over by his team-mates.

In the men's 800m, Fearnley had qualified for lane seven but was put in lane two.

He was surrounded for the entire race and could not get past Great Britain's David Weir.

In a humbling show of sportsmanship, Fearnley requested that the results stand, even though officials had ordered a re-run.

"It's hard to put into words how much that means to me," Fearnley said after this morning's marathon.

"It was more than a testing week and to finish up with this one - this is the one we were talking about for years, I wanted to go back to back on this one.

"To have won the Athens marathon and then to have won 15 or so international marathons between that and now, and to really cement into history that I can win two Paralympic marathons and 15 in between means a lot to me.

"I never thought there was a curse, I just thought there were things I had to get through.

"I knew in myself that every single bad thing that happened just meant the next good thing is going to be twice as good.

"So everything this week has just made this marathon better than what it could have been."

Fearnley's coach, Andrew Dawes, says Fearnley managed to move past each setback and work towards his next event.

"The hardest thing is blocking it out and moving to the next race," he said.

"Luckily we've had another race to focus on when something has gone wrong.

"Finally we've come to the last one and come up trumps, it's a good feeling."